The industry, which managed to push its top agenda item — repeal of the medical device tax — to the fore during the recent fiscal standoff, has begun quietly plotting strategy to get the issue across the finish line during the next budget fight.

Several K-Streeters said the industry is planning its next big push by highlighting the measure as a rare area with bipartisan congressional support. They are also making plans to again employ company CEOs to make the case to lawmakers and on the ground with employees.

Industry reps have already begun looking at ways to combat unexpected criticism that cropped up in recent weeks from groups on the right, like Heritage Action Fund, and opposition on the left by unions, like the Service Employees International Union.

“The events over the last couple of weeks have been a net positive,” said Stephen Ubl, president and CEO of Advanced Medical Technology Association — which spent $1.8 million lobbying Congress in the first nine months this year. That’s already more than the average $1.5 million it spent lobbying each of the past three years. “We were at the center of potential compromise.”

Medical device suppliers and manufacturers have been pumping millions of dollars into lobbying efforts aimed at unraveling the 2.3 percent levy that helps fund Obamacare — and increasing campaign contributions since the law went into effect in 2010. Now the makers and sellers of items like pacemakers and artificial hips are looking to seize the next budget standoff as their best chance to re-engage lawmakers on the issue.

Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who have bipartisan legislation to repeal the tax, huddled on the Senate floor last week during the vote to end the government shutdown. The two promised each other “the first opportunity we have to add it to something to get it through both houses. … We will be looking at every vehicle that comes up on the U.S. Senate floor,” Hatch told POLITICO.

In the House, Reps. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) and Ron Kind (D-Wis.), who advocated for a shutdown-debt ceiling accord centered on the device tax repeal, plan on meeting soon to discuss the next steps, including how they might influence the upcoming budget talks.

Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah), another repeal supporter, has shifted his focus to Dec. 13, the next budget talks deadline both chambers established during negotiations, calling it “the next venue” to raise the issue.

And if that effort fails, he and others, like Rep. Erik Paulsen, who has more than 200 device makers in his district, are looking to January as the key moment.

“With the CR deadline in January, this issue will be right there,” the Minnesota Republican said. “This is not going to fade away.”

Sponsorship of device tax repeal legislation has also grown in recent weeks. Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Kay Hagan of North Carolina were the most recent of 37 co-sponsors on the Hatch-Klobuchar repeal bill while co-signers of the House version grew to 266.

Sounds like an easy bipartisan sell? Not so fast.

Repeal will be an uphill fight, in large part because the tax funds Obamacare, and some see a slippery slope in helping one industry over others.

“It would undermine part of the Affordable Care Act — we need that for pay-fors,” Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) said, echoing many Democrats who oppose repeal.

From the right, Heritage Action this fall urged conservatives to stand against repeal because it wouldn’t halt the rest of Obamacare. From the left, 91 unions and health groups across the country recently denounced repeal as a corporate tax loophole.

Repeal backers also need to convince the top Democratic leaders and President Barack Obama, all of whom have said they oppose repealing the tax, to get on board. Top Senate tax writer Max Baucus (D-Mont.) is also a staunch opponent of repeal.

Another major obstacle is the $30 billion hole repeal would leave in the budget over 10 years. It’s proved difficult for members to come up with ways to cover the entire expense.

One Senate Democratic aide said that cost makes all the difference. Even though 79 senators — including 33 Democrats— agreed to a symbolic vote to repeal the levy earlier this year, they did so knowing it wouldn’t become law. But many Democrats who support device tax repeal say they’d need offsets in an actual repeal vote.

The same staffer said the industry actually lost points with some lawmakers during the recent budget impasse.

“The industry’s unabashed greed during our nation’s time of crisis really alienated a lot of people on both sides of the aisle and made it less likely that they will be able to achieve its goals,” said the Democratic aide, who has worked on the issue. “When America was so close to being forced to root around in the couch cushions to pay our bills, their lobbyists were running around the halls of Congress asking for an over $30 billion special carve-out.”

Still, some opponents of the repeal — including Ways and Means Democrat Bill Pascrell of New Jersey — said they’d consider exempting small businesses from the tax, an option Baucus presented to the industry while writing the law in 2009.

“I hope not, but yeah, … it’s on a lower branch of the tree,” device tax supporter and medical device industry skeptic Pascrell said when asked if he believed repeal talk will resurface in the next fiscal fight. “It really reflects what Washington is all about: follow the money.”

Some Senate Republicans, including Hatch and Maine Sen. Susan Collins, believe Obama is more open to a modification based on comments the president made in a meeting during the shutdown when they say he said that the tax is not a “core” part of the Affordable Care Act. The White House did not return a request for comment on these reports.

AdvaMed says it will continue lobbying allies and seeking converts.

Collins got more than a dozen senators to consider a compromise to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling in return for a two-year delay of the tax, among other things.

Across the Capitol, Kind and Dent rallied 40 members of the centrist New Democrat Coalition as well as moderate Republicans in the Tuesday Group to sign on.

Although the repeal didn’t make the final cut, supporters say the negotiations have raised the profile of their cause.

“If you polled America two months ago and asked what the medical device tax is, I’m not sure many people would have ever heard of it; now, it’s much better known,” said Matheson, who persuaded a swath of bipartisan freshmen to join the Dent-Kind coalition.